I often deal with conspiracy theories (or rather criticisms of them) here, but this time a great observation by Curtis Yarvin. Not from his recent articles, but from his older book Unqualified Reservations.
The first major conspiracy theory to emerge in the West in the last decade, which temporarily took over the West and is still very influential, is that of the so-called far right. Not that there aren’t fringe groups of various crackpots, but this conspiracy theory claimed that there was a vast network capable of taking over the Western world. There wasn’t a shred of truth to it, but tens of thousands of people acted on it, entire organisations fought against it, and massive government programmes opposed it. The mainstream media pushed it as a major issue. It might as well have been a space invasion.
How is this different from a simple lie? Curtis uses the following criteria:
- Spontaneous action is explained by an organised conspiracy (“it can’t be a coincidence”)
- The explanation is not subject to verification. You just have to believe it, or you’re a suspect yourself.
- The different parts of it contradict each other a bit, so you have to use some pretty desperate constructions to explain the contradictions.
We can only regret that there has been no rational opposition to this, but that the political opposition has begun to emulate the methods of the ruling group. Perhaps today’s civilisational decline is not so deep.
